A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.

You have to block everything out and be extremely focused and be relaxed and mellow too.

Jennifer Capriati

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

Francis Bacon

COLUMBUS BROUGHT SMALLPOX TO THE NATIVES; WE SHALL RECALL THE OCCASION WITH A PICNIC!

John Green

It is not always easy to diagnose. The simplest form of stupidity - the mumbling, nose-picking, stolid incomprehension - can be detected by anyone. But the stupidity which disguises itself as thought, and which talks so glibly and eloquently, indeed never stops talking, in every walk of life is not so easy to identify, because it marches under a formidable name, which few dare attack. It is called Popular Opinion...

Robertson Davies, Can a Doctor B

That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject.

George Santayana

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

C.S. Lewis

Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.

Charles Caleb Colton

Religion fails if it cannot speak to men as they are.

William Barclay

Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair.

Friedrich von Schiller

Marriage isn't the end-point of a relationship. It's just a stepping stone, one aspect of a long-term evolution between two people who have, for whatever reason, decided to take a leap of faith and say, 'Well, hey, this is a person who I want to try with for the rest of my life.' Which is not a guarantee of perfection - far from it.

Marjorie Liu

The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would be no more war.

Benjamin Netanyahu

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied By a chance bond together, Dangling this way and that, their links Were made so loose and wide, Methinks, For milder weather.

Henry David Thoreau